Who Ordered The Levee Blown Up In New Orleans? Mayor Ray Nagin!!!Update 9/28

The DEPRAVITY of the

Der Fuhrer CHICKENSHIT King george

Protectors have no boundaries.

Daniel

and that has what to do with this thread Damnial?

HALLIBURTON, SHAW AND BECTAL is where the money
goes.

Updated: 05:00 PM EDT
Democrats Warn of Potential Katrina Contract Abuse


WASHINGTON (Sept. 16) - Rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina could be ripe for fraud if government whistle-blowers are not better protected than those who lost their jobs after disclosing abuses in Iraq´s reconstruction, a leading Senate Democrat said on Friday.
Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said all necessary resources should be deployed to rebuild New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast, but the billions of dollars in expected government spending must be must be carefully monitored.

"We simply must ensure accountability for these massive expenditures -- so that these dollars don´t just wind up lining the pockets of unscrupulous contractors, as we´ve seen all too often in Iraq," Dorgan said at an unofficial hearing held by the Democratic Policy Committee, a congressional group.

"One of the keys to ensuring accountability is to have civil servants who witness fraud, waste and abuse to blow the whistle," Dorgan said.

Dorgan called the hearing to review the cases of two contracting officers who say they were forced out of jobs at the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers after exposing problems with Iraq contracts.

Democrats, unable to call official hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress, have often used the policy-committee forum to call attention to their priorities.

Bunnatine Greenhouse said she was forced out of her job as a top U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracting official on August 27 after raising questions about Halliburton Co.´s contracts in Iraq and testifying to an earlier policy committee hearing on the matter.

"I was removed because I steadfastly resisted and attempted to alter what can be described as casual and clubby contracting practices by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commanders, and because I presented testimony before this body on June 27, 2005," she said.

Greenhouse told the committee in June that Halliburton´s deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had seen, adding that "every aspect" of the deal had been under the control of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld´s office.

Halliburton has strongly rejected Greenhouse´s comments.

Halliburton Co.´s subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root has already been given a $29.8 million contract to rebuild Navy bases along the Katrina battered Gulf Coast. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Estimates of the federal government cost in reconstructing the shattered region have been as high as $200 billion.

Christy Watts, a former contracting officer for the Corps of Engineers, said she was forced to sign off on some contracts despite her objections and was told by supervisors not to go over their heads.

"The plight I encountered as a whistle-blower in the Army Corp of Engineers was nothing short of traumatic," said Watts, who described herself as a Republican. "For the first time in my life, I was forced to seek medical assistance to deal with the stress."

Watts said a settlement agreement with the Army Corps included a provision that she was not to contact the special counsel about her concerns about contract abuse.

A Dorgan aide said officials from the Army Corps had been invited to testify but declined.


09/16/05 15:17 ET

[link to www.workingforchange.com]

The graft goes on
Halliburton takes lead in Katrina reconstruction

AUSTIN, Texas -- Here´s a good idea: Consumer groups and progressive congressfolks have joined in an effort to stop hundreds of thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina from being further harmed by the new Bankruptcy Act, scheduled to take effect Oct. 17. This law was notoriously written of, by and for the consumer credit industry, and is particularly onerous for the poor.
The bill was passed with massive support from the Republican leadership in Congress and from a disgusting number of sellout Democrats. While it was being considered in committee earlier this year, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee offered an amendment to protect victims of natural disasters. It was defeated, without debate, on a party-line vote.

Now, Congress has a chance to rethink some of the most punitive parts of the bill. Katrina victims who were planning to file before the new law goes into effect are s.o.l. -- where are they gonna find a lawyer, let alone an open courthouse?

Under the new law, anyone whose income is over the state median must file under Chapter 13, a more restrictive category that requires some repayment of debt. The new law grants no exemption for natural disaster, even though it´s going to be a little tough for some citizen sitting in the Astrodome who no longer has a home to come up with tax statements, pay stubs, and six months of income and expense data. Let´s see if Congress can manage to open its marble heart on this issue.

Meanwhile, it´s an ill wind that blows no one good, so we should not be surprised to learn the first winner out of the gate on Katrina is none other than the Halliburton Co., whose deserving subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root has already been granted a $29.8 million contract for cleanup work in the wake of Katrina.

Of course, no one would suggest Halliburton and its subsidiaries get government contracts (more than $9 billion for reconstruction work in Iraq, with Pentagon audits thus far showing $1.03 billion in "questioned" costs and $422 million in "unsupported costs") just because Vice President Cheney is still on the payroll. Heavens no. The veep continues to receive deferred pay from the company he formerly headed -- $194,852 last year.

But Cheney has nothing to do with the Halliburton contracts -- that, friends, goes through none other than the noted lobbyist and former head of -- of all things -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Since Joe Allbaugh, who was Bush´s campaign manger in 2000, left FEMA in December 2002, he has been busy making sure reconstruction contracts in Iraq go to companies that give generously to the Republican Party.

Now, aren´t you ashamed of yourself for thinking there´s something wrong with that? Besides, Allbaugh is now with a big-time Washington lobbying firm, where he also represents Shaw Group Inc., and -- viola -- Shaw Group, too, already has a $100 million emergency contract from FEMA for housing management and construction, and a $100 million order from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Katrina repair.

Congress has appropriated over $60 billion in emergency funding for recovery costs, and estimates are the final costs will top $100 billion.

Danielle Brian, director of the Project on Government Oversight, told Reuters, "The government has got to stop stacking senior positions with people who are repeatedly cashing in on the public trust in order to further private commercial interests."

Now, Ms. Brian, get a grip. Not all the money goes to the big, politically connected firms.

Michael ("You´re doing a heckuva job") Brown liked to spread federal money around. In fact, Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida was so annoyed by Brownie´s distribution of largesse in Miami after Hurricane Frances that he urged the president to fire Ol´ Brownie last January. What upset Wexler about the $30 million in FEMA checks to cover new wardrobes, cars, lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, furniture and appliances was that the hurricane did not affect Miami. It landed 100 miles away.

Some of you may have heard me observe a time or two -- going back to when George W. was still governor of Texas -- that the trouble with the guy is that while he is good at politics, he stinks at governance. It bores him, he´s not interested, he thinks government is bad to begin with and everything would be done better if it were contracted out to corporations.

We can now safely assert that W. has stacked much of the federal government with people like himself. And what you get when you put people in charge of government who don´t believe in government and who are not interested in running it well is... what happened after Hurricane Katrina.

Many a time in the past six years I have bit my tongue so I wouldn´t annoy people with the always obnoxious observation, "I told you so." But, dammit it all to hell, I did tell you, and I´ve been telling you since 1994, and I am so sick of this man and everything he represents -- all the sleazy, smug, self-righteous graft and corruption and "Christian" moralizing and cynicism and tax cuts for all his smug, rich buddies.

Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.

Yeah, right. Holler, holler, holler, Loud and proud and maybe no one will notice it is they who are getting fat on all that Fed Pork.

They´re ALL in bed together.
If you trust one, you trust them all.


RBH - you know something else that worries me about Nagin.. he keeps promising people they can come back into the city within the next few days, but there´s no water or communication or food, electricity, etc etc etc.

And there are potentially THREE hurricanes heading toward the Gulf in the next several days. And they´ve admitted another storm would destroy what´s left of the levees.

WTF is he thinking???

For some reason, all of the hand-wringing and public posturing by Nagin didn´t impress me. He knew what was planned before it happened. City officials are always approached by the Feds to clue them in or threaten them if they don´t cooperate. Afraid the CIA was going to snuff him? Sure.

i did

Which one of the THREE levees that were breached are you referring to?

RBH, funny how you conveniently missed this thread:

[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]


So where´s your proof that the mayor ordered the blow up? Oh, let me guess, you have none?

Nagin´s a democrat, what more proof does RBH need?

"Nagin´s a democrat, what more proof does RBH need?"


And that of course would stand up as proof in a court of law in the eyes of a Republican

First off where´s the proof that the levees were blown..

Seriously, why are you saying the levee was blown? Do you have solid proof that this occured. You´re nothing but a woo-woo. I swear, can´t anything happen without it being some kind of god damn conspiracy. You people need to get lives.

Mayor Ray Nagin!!!

Ahhhhhh, nope..... guess again!

Save one area by blowing a levee in another area is SOP in flooding situations.
Though it may not have needed as I´ve been told the east side levee was buildt lower than the west side.

Helloooo?? To blow up something, you have to have access to high explosives. I doubt if most mayors have that access. You need to look a little higher than that. To someone who has access to the military, which has the explosives. Since the La Guards probably wouldn´t blow up their own city, and they´re in Baghdad anyway, you need to concentrate on Fema, which is an EXECUTIVE agency, working for the Chief Executive, Bush.

[link to www.lsp.org]

Q: What is George W. Bush´s position on Roe vs. Wade?













A: He really doesn´t care how people get out of New Orleans.

Daniel

Louisiana uses over 2000 metric tons a year of high explosives.

So, uh, RBH....you´re saying that Nagin had the MOST to gain???

Typical Bushbot, RBH hasn´t responded to his own thread.

FEMA Katrina Funeral Contractor Desecrated Corpses
Thursday, 15 September 2005, 2:15 pm
Article: Jason Leopold

Division of Funeral Corp. Charged With Desecrating Corpses Hired to Collect Deceased Victims of Hurricane Katrina

By Jason LeopoldA funeral services company which recently learned that one of its subsidiaries is negotiating a lucrative contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove dead bodies in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, paid $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit several years ago alleging the company desecrated thousands of corpses, and dumped bodies into mass graves.

Moreover, the company paid $200,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that sought to expose that two members of the Texas funeral commission, the agency which regulates the funeral industry, were actually employees of the company they were supposed to monitor--an obvious conflict-of-interest.

In the civil matter, which took place at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida, the plaintiff´s attorney said that SCI secretly broke into and opened burial vaults and dumped remains in a wooded area where the remains may have been consumed by wild animals.

Additionally, SCI buried "remains in locations other than those purchased by plaintiffs; crushing burial vaults in order to make room for other vaults; burying remains on top of the other rather than side-by-side; secretly digging up and removing remains; secretly burying remains head-to-foot rather than side-by-side; secretly mixing body parts and remains from different individuals; secretly allowing plots owned by one part to be occupied by a different person; secretly selling plots in rows where there were more graves assigned than the rows could accommodate; secretly allowed graves to encroach on other plots; secretly sold plots so narrow that the plots could not accommodate standard burial vaults; secretly participated in the desecration of gravesites and markers and failed to exercise reasonable care in handling the plaintiff´s loved ones remains."

Kenyon International. a unit of SCI, is presently in charge of the delicate task of collecting the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead bodies in the aftermath of the hurricane.

Details about SCI´s mass graves and mutilated corpses emerged publicly five years ago. According to the lawsuit, a former employee of Menorah Gardens & Funeral Chapels in West Palm Beach, which is owned by SCI, showed investigators human remains discarded in a wooded area near the cemetery.

Attorneys representing the families of the deceased who were buried at Menorah Gardens said they obtained a so-called "burial book" included gruesome details about SCI´s burial practices.

"No room for spouse," "move Mrs. Kolin" and "dig this grave double deep," said one excerpt from the book. A handwritten note obtained along with the book said, "Where are Lippitis and who are Haskells and are they both deceased? Move Haskell marker."

The fact that a subsidiary of SCI is in talks with the federal government, largely due to its close ties to the White House, to remove bodies in New Orleans is ghastly.

The whistleblower suit dates back to 1999 and alleges that while he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush’s office interfered with an aggressive state investigation into the embalming practices by Service Corporation International, a Houston-based funeral conglomerate headed by Robert Waltrip—a close friend of the Bush family who also contributed heavily to then Gov. Bush´s gubernatorial campaigns, and donated $100,000 to former President George Bush’s presidential library.

An attorney for Eliza May, a former whistleblower who served as executive director of the Texas Funeral Services Commission, the state agency that regulates the funeral business, claimed that she was fired from her state job because she raised questions about SCI´s embalming practices and sought to expose the company´s misdeeds. She filed a whistleblower suit in 1999 alleging "she was the victim of "political" retaliation because she was threatening the interests of a well-connected political patron of the governor," Newsweek reported in an April 21, 2001, story.

May claimed that current White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales was also complicit in the matter and even helped SCI in a cover-up. Gonzales, who was also Bush’s gubernatorial counsel, reportedly received a memo on April 22, 1996, suggesting possible improprieties by two funeral commissioners with ties to SCI.

"Bush and his top aides have heatedly denied the charges and suggested the entire matter was drummed up by Democratic lawyers with political motives, Newsweek reported.

The memo, written by Marc Allen Connelly, who was general counsel to the funeral services commission at the time, and sent to Dick McNeil, the Bush-appointed chairman of the funeral commission, stated that Connelly "received information" from Texas state officials that two of the funeral commissioners charged with regulating the state funeral business actually worked for SCI-the largest funeral firm in the state. Although one of the commissioners was openly an SCI officer (the one appointed by Bush), Connelly stated that state banking records he inspected showed that another of the commissioners," Newsweek reported.

The revelation represented a "a possible statutory conflict." Texas law prohibited any two commissioners from having ties "directly or indirectly "to the same funeral company.

In the memo, Connelly told McNeil that he should "immediately inform the Governor of this apparent conflict and also recommend that the Governor take action to remove both (the two SCI-related commissioners) from the commission because both individuals knew or should have known of this conflict yet failed to notify the governor´s office."

McNeil stated in a deposition that after he received the Connelly memo, he faxed it to Polly Sowell, who then served as Bush´s appointments secretary. "When she was questioned, Sowell was asked what she did with the memo. "I sent it to the General Counsel´s Office," she said. But Sowell said she did not remember what happened after that and, in his interview with NEWSWEEK, Gonzales said such a memo was merely one of many that might have crossed his desk and was otherwise not memorable. In any case, Bush never acted on the memo´s recommendations that the SCI affiliated commissioners be removed."

[link to www.scoop.co.nz]

RBH on stir up duty again!

Will be interesting to watch when you will reap what you sowed.

Hey, I supplied more proof than anyone else does on this entire BS that Bush lied about the reasons for going to war against a murderous Regime in Afghanistan, and the brutal dictator in Iraq.

All you have to do is hate Bush and that is all the proof you need that he did something nefarious when you are a libbie

Has anyone proved it isn´t true? Why no, they haven´t.

"Hey, I supplied more proof than anyone else does on this entire BS that Bush lied about the reasons for going to war against a murderous Regime in Afghanistan, and the brutal dictator in Iraq."


Blah blah blah. A garbage dump has more value than what you are saying here. Besides,weren´t we asking for proof of what you had originally made in this post? Or you just created it as an excuse to talk about the war propaganda.

You have a right to your opinion, but what I said is true about Nagin. Follow the money. Who had the resources in place to do it? He did. FEMA has not allowed in to New Orleans for 96 hours at his order. That is a fact. Bush had no reason to do it, Nagin did. He now has jobs, no resource drain from a lazy, uneducated population. No more dead beats that scare of affluent tourists, and a sky rocketing tax base as real-estate values nearly doubled over night. As new buildings and posh amenities go up, so does his tax fortune. He will be living in fat city in two years or less.

RBH, I have three words for you:

CRACK is WHACK.

Leave them drugs alone, son.

Go fuck your self you ignorant psycho.